


The Curiousness of Certain Quartermaster

by zetsubou69



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Torchwood
Genre: Bisexuality, Crossover, F/M, I Made A Thing, M/M, Past Relationships, Pining, Q Has a Cat, in my head it was ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 06:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6600955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubou69/pseuds/zetsubou69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where the Quartermaster has a type (people who could be powerful but are too focused on the little things), and Bond is rather confused and little bit jealous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curiousness of Certain Quartermaster

The first time Bond meets the new Quartermaster he notices that tiny spark that jumps between them. After all, not everyone is able to tell a seasoned killer that he's a grand old warship hauled to be destroyed, warn him to behave, and threaten him with skills he's able to employ while still in pyjamas before first cup of earl grey. Young Q is a delightful change, delightful man, and so easy on the eyes that Bond's eyes do linger on the lithe body longer than it is necessary.

After Q proves his loyalty to Bond, the Queen and the country by ignoring few rules here and there, Bond decides this man is definitely worth his respect and that it would be great if he had chance to learn more about Q. Well, more than that. Q has uncanny obsession with comfortable sweaters, a sweet tooth, serious tea addiction, at least twenty cardigans, and two beasts he claims that are cats (and Bond refuses to believe it, until he googles up that Maine Coon really can grow this big). All of which is to be seen in his MI6 workshop on regular basis.

Bond even begins to try his best to return his equipment to always-angry Q, who fails to understand why some buildings had to or even could blow up, despite 007 not being assigned any explosives.

What surprises Bond, and the rest of double oh section, is how deep Q's loyalty for his agents run.

During his downtime, Bond witnesses Q ignoring M's direct order and re-routing agents just to save their skin, even if it is a threat to completing the mission. Bond witnesses Q coming up with rescue missions. Bond sees Q visit 003 in Medical, personally congratulating him on mission well done and wishing him to get well soon. The executives Bond remembers never had this close relationships to the sociopaths they hired to do the dirty work; and it makes all double-ohs feel a bit more human, being treated as such.

When it is Bond's turn to be visited by Q, lying in Medical high on drugs, with splintered ribs and serious case of concussion and nasty back burn - a reminder that burning buildings were to be avoided next time and they had better to be detonated from distance.

Q comes carrying pizza, offering Bond a slice.

"I could kiss you right now," Bond says in hoarse voice, trying his best to convey his joy, as he reaches for the only edible meal in the medical section.

"No dining and wining before that? I have higher standards."                                       

"I mean it, I can't stomach the food here, you're saviour," replies Bond while wolfing down his pizza with pieces of bacon on top.

"I know, Bond, all of you complain about it quite enough."

They sit in silence, Bond eating, Q watching Bond eating.

Q takes a slice himself, just to fill the time. He doesn't seem to carry his laptop around with him, possibly just his tablet or phone are hidden somewhere on his person. Bond noticed before, that while Q's suit looked atrocious, it has several pockets and is great at concealing whatever Q is carrying on his person.

"When I'm out, have a dinner with me, Q," Bond startles his Quartermaster with an offer.

Q looks at him in disbelief then removes empty pizza box to trash can.

"That was free of charge. Get well soon, 007," Q says and departs in hurry.

 

*

 

"Eve! Beautifully dangerous as always!" Bond smiles at a woman carrying files and big mug of earl grey.

"Flattery might get you somewhere, James, but not today. What do you need? I have to get this to Q before someone gets grumpy," Moneypenny replies, brushing off Bond's attention.

"The file or the tea?"

"Both, preferably. How are you, by the way? I heard you got quite messed up in South America."

"I'm good, thank you. Say, you give me the biscuits from your purse, and I carry all three things to your most precious Q?"

Eve eyes him suspiciously but gives it up all.

"If I didn't know you, I'd say you're trying to bribe him for some extra toys. Did you now 009 returned from Belgium with some chocolate for him? And 005 figured out how to use the coffee machine in Q-branch and now makes him occasionally a cup. I heard, Q takes his with dollop of almond milk and enough sugar bees could drink it."

Bond takes the mug of steaming hot earl grey, a thick file of documents and small box of biscuits.

"Say hi to Steve, I'll book you a place in restaurant of your choice."

"Just be nice to Q, I heard his exes are nothing great." 

 

*

  

Bond is on another mission that has gone tits up. He is hiding in a closet under the stairs and counting how many armed men he has yet to disable before he can exit safely with his life and intel intact.

"Bond, I suggest you hurry in your decision, if you want dine in London ever again, few of them looked quite like they want to cut your throat.”

“Are you offering to have a dinner with me when I’m back?”

“If that makes you work harder, bring back your equipment intact and I might give it a though,” Q mutters into his mic.

Yet, the car Bond was assigned gets destroyed again, so Q frowns and growls at him instead of accepting his offer for dinner. And live goes on.

 

*

 

Bond believed he saw probably everything that MI6 could surprise him with, during his years in the army and years serving old M. You name it, he saw it. M being furious. The old M. Getting Mallory upset was much easier task, at least during his first year. He witnessed Eve besotted with her current lover, Steve, a primary school PE teacher, who believed she was just a secretary to high ranked government official from European Union with unpronounceable name. He was there when Tanner was absolutely drunk and shamelessly carefree. He saw even Q’s bloody cats walking freely over the Q-branch and distracting minions from work, because who doesn’t want to play and cuddle with majestic balls of fur and claws named Turing and Tesla. Only M declined, because they shed and he had an appointment with the prime minister in thirty minutes.

Bond still did not expect this.

After entering the Q-branch at late night hour, with a plan to flirt a bit with certain boffin and to ask him out, he finds Q-branch vacant, save for few dim screens and one or two napping minions dealing with a graveyard shift. Knowing that Q haven’t left the MI6 yet, he continues further into Q’s more private space, his underground workshop and office.

Bond reaches for the door’s handle, just to notice the door slightly ajar, when familiar voice spoke up.

“I though you died, you idiot,” Q says, and surprisingly the words are not directed at him this time.

Bond peeks in and sees Q’s ruffled hair, as the Quartermaster is pacing around, mostly facing the door. There is another man with his back turned to the doors.

“It took ten years of me, I feel so good now!” the man that is not Q exclaims joyfully.

Q just glares at him angrily.  Bond’s eyebrows rise. A lover’s spat on MI6’s premises?

“You never for a second thought about me? I though you’re… dead, or you have concussion or something, because of the phone call.”

Bond pulls his hand back, deciding not to disturb them for a moment.

“But you see that I’m perfectly okay!” the other man laughs, that kind of adrenaline induced laugher Bond knows too well.

“You’re mad! That’s what I see!” Q hisses, with a frown usually meant only for disobedient double-ohs.

“Don’t be angry at me, or be angry at me, you look so hot right now…”

The man corners the Quartermaster against a table and slips his hand over Q’s inner thigh. Bond has to agree that angry Q really does look hot when angry.

Q pushes the man away with a single motion of his arms.

“Sod of, Jim! I thought you’re dead! And now, to assure me you didn’t die you’re trying to get laid? No. Not anymore.”

“What are you trying to say?” Jim takes a step back, the tone of his voice changing. There’s a pregnant silence filling the room for a second. Q exhales and speaks, as if surrendering.

Bond leans in a bit further to be able to hear more clearly. Can’t take spying out of spy.

“I can clearly see it now. We’re fundamentally different people. You and I.”

“Are we?”

Jim hesitates. Q takes one more step away from him.

“Yes we are. Thus I’m not returning to you and I’m not letting you return to me,” he says resolutely.

“But why? I’m okay and alive and so are you and I forgave you the fling you had with the woman…” Jim whines, at least it sounds like that.

Q snorts.

“You want to talk about it again? Let’s get one thing straight, we’re done, she and I, and also, you and I, we are over, Jim!” Q snapped.

Bond smiled to himself. Single Q means he has a chance.

Jim puts his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

“Straight, of course she set you straight, with tits and pussy, she made you forget you like cock,” he utters, dissatisfied with his life like a five year old that didn’t get the candy.

Q takes a heavy book and slams it against his table. Loud noise echoes the silent workspace like a gunshot. Hidden behind semi-open door Bond barely stops himself from jumping at that noise. Then Q straightens himself and turns to Jim, his face void of any warmth or emotion.

“Fuck off, Jim. And don’t try to move back or I’ll have you shot.”

“You wouldn’t,” Jim replies, horrified, then zips up his jacket, a sign he’s planning to depart.

“You fucked with a guy that looks like me, just to spite both of us.” Q isn’t attacking, he’s merely stating facts. Bond finds his control a big turn on. But so obviously does this Jim guy.

“I did not fuck with him, I just messed him up,” Jim whines, then deflates under Q’s glare. “I’ll move out by evening. Please do not have me shot until then, blood is surprisingly really hard to clean off your floor.”

Q keeps on glaring and Jim now really departs. Bond quickly hides behind crates of equipment to avoid being seen by any of two men. Debrief can definitely wait until the morning.

 

 *

 

James encounters the woman several weeks later.

Correction.

James encounters The Woman several weeks later.

Irene Adler is sitting in café at a small table and his Quartermaster is sitting opposite her. Both of them are smiling. From a distance Bond can clearly see them flirting.  Irene Adler, known professionally as The Woman, presumed dead, previously wanted for possession of compromising data on the Royal family, is sitting at the same table as the Quartermaster of MI6 and they are flirting.

Bond closes in.  As inconspicuously as possible of course. With his own cup of coffee and The Economist.

“I can’t believe you left us both, pet. Are you sure you’re not interested in spending the night?”

“Not your call to make. And I decline. Now, to the business.”

Q makes an annoyed noise then he puts a box, black on with a red ribbon on it, onto the table. “Merry Christmas, Ms Adler.”

“It’s hardly October, so I’ll consider it late birthday gift. After the nights we spend together …”

She flirts, seduces with her mere presence but Q just brushes her charm off as if it was falling dust.

“I expect you to leave the country for a while again. Under no circumstances you are to let any of them know of your current… why are you looking at me like that?”

Irene hides the small box into her purse.

“You have the look of a man who’s loved. You changed, pet.”

“Stop with the silliness. You know well I’m too busy with my job.”

“Give my greetings to the Iceman and the Virgin, and please hold your pet agent on a leash while I leave. We wouldn’t want to cause a scene.”

Q looks around and Bond knows he’s been made although he’s hiding behind a really ugly potted plant, a trick that usually works. The glare he receives is not a nice one, thus he decides to finish his coffee and newspaper in peace.

With Irene Adler gone, Q vanishes from his seat unnoticed. 

 

*

  

Bond feels Q’s gaze at him every-time he enters Vauxhall for the next several weeks, but not one other person there has learned about Q’s date. Bond also decides not to confront his Quartermaster about what he witnessed, he merely keeps it for just in case days.

Somewhere between what happened and what followed, Q has accepted James’s invitation to a dinner. On the contrary to what people consider proper date, and because Q spoke about his preferences (which definitely are not five star restaurants), they share a meal in a small family restaurant of Q’s choice that serves some kind of African cuisine that burns Bond’s throat and makes him weep. Q is doing just slightly better. They make a deal not to talk about this in public, ever, but whatever distance were they keeping between them, by the end of the night it is gone. A private intimacy sets in. 

They reach an equilibrium, which lasts through another mission, until the busy day Bond returns from Egypt, tanned and unwounded, and goes to Q-branch to return his equipment to the rightful owner (a fact, of which he was reminded several times).

Q’s busying himself with some tinkering, so Bond puts on his pleasant smile and starts walking towards his Quartermaster, but R out of nowhere appears beside him and speaks up first.

“A head of some government section I’ve never heard of is on his way here, wanting to talk to you. The appointment is in your electronic planner, but not in the physical copy. I also can’t access any files on him, but system didn’t flag him. Do you want me to take care of him, or will you do it yourself?”

Q sighs and places the screwdriver on a table.

“Send the bureaucratic ass my way, I can’t believe M or Tanner used their override to have me deal with department heads.” 

R nods and Q gestures at Bond to make himself comfortable by the coffee maker, that this might take a while before Q can pay him attention.

Then the door beeps, a visitor pass being scanned and accepted for this section, and a tall man in a World War Two RAF overcoat and blindingly bright smile walks in. He turns to first minion that is unlucky to be walking past the door at the moment.

“Captain Jack Harkness. Where can I find your current boss, handsome?”

The minion, a man in his thirties, literally squeaks and points towards Q’s table at the end of the room, trying his best not to drop the plans he’s holding.

The man, Captain Jack Harkness, strides towards Q’s table. Q sighs and Bonds chuckles at the surrender that’s for a moment visible at young man’s face and that is replaced by perfectly cold and capable façade. Q gets up to meet the soldier, and Bond busies himself with coffee maker.

“I’m Q,” he announces loud and clear, the moment he becomes visible to the newcomer.

To Bond’s disbelief, Harkness’s smile grows even brighter.

“And here I though the century would be over before I ever see you again. Looking good, _Q_ ,” he greets Q with a firm handshake, obviously only because Q managed to avoid both the hug and the kiss the new man had seemed to be aiming for.

“Cut the crap, Jack, what do you want?”

“You hurt my feelings, I thought you cared for me a bit more.”

With every word spoken Q branch falls a slightly more silent, except for the sound of coffeemaker and plenty other machines, everyone wants to hear how Q knows the other guy.

“We spent a week together. Don’t flatter yourself.”

Bond choses the moment to place a mug of steaming hot tea on Q’s desk, within Q’s reach.

“Except it was a time loop, so it was a whole year. Excuse me, but who made the deliciously smelling coffee, and may I have a cup?” Harkness looks around and his eyes fall on Bond, sipping his coffee from biohazard black and yellow mug.

“I don’t know, can he, Q?” Bond asks, paying back the stare.

“Of which I spent most of the time reading. Lucky me it was a library. And no you may not. State your demands and piss off unless you plan messing with my life again, in which case I’ll order 007 here to kill you.”

At hearing the designated number Harkness eyes Bond from head to toes and reaches out his right hand.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” he smiles brightly at Bond, ”and don’t take it personally if he orders you to do it, he’s been at it for _ages_.”

Bond has some manners, and this was supposed to be a head of some department so he returns the handshake.

“Bond. James Bond.”

And to be honest, since Harkness seems to be Q’s ex-something, Bond kind of gets how it was possible. The understanding turns out mutual, when Harkness lets go of his hand.

“Q, I totally get why you work here. Would you share him? He can bring all the guns he loves to the bed with us,” Jack says and Q just sighs and takes a seat back at his table. That gesture prompts Q-branch back to work. Harkness pulls up a nearby chair and takes a seat too.

“I need a tech, some-one who can work with advanced stuff, connect it with contemporary and manage it for a while. I promise I’ll return them right after I’m done recruiting and training my own.”

“So you though you’ll be given someone from MI6?”

 “You did blow my base up with me in it,” Harkness shrugs.

“That was MI5,” Q counters, as if blowing up a base with someone inside was nothing.

“I still need my base in Cardiff. I didn’t spend last year collecting the Rift Manipulator all over the galaxy only not to have where to put it.”

“One person. I’ll pick the craziest tech of my team and you will promise me you won’t ruin them, or I will personally kill you once for every day they’re gone.”

“You’re hot when you try to be scary. I promise I will not personally ruin them. But you know it’s the job. Now, may I have the coffee?”

Q nods and Bond gives up the other mug he was shielding with his body.

Harkness drinks his coffee while making loud happy comments, but they move on to business and eventually pick a technician with resume almost as long as Q’s to help Harkness with whatever technical he needs to be helped with, and right after he stands up to leave he asks a question that catches James’s attention.

“How are the cats?”

Q shrugs his shoulders noncommittally.

“The kittens look Earthish, pass as ordinary, except they are bloody picky about food.”

Harkness laughs good-heartedly, says his goodbyes, and teleports away with a device on his wrist, as if this was Star Trek.

James Bond does his best not to gape at the empty space where the man was a second ago.

 

*

 

The engine of Bond’s Aston Martin is purring quietly as James is driving them home after long work day in the office.

“So, Q, Turing and Tesla are aliens? Explains why they hate me.”

“No, James, they don’t hate you, they are territorial. And all cats are aliens, mine are just dumb, for their race.”

There’s an awkward silence and honking of a claxon somewhere out in the evening traffic.

“Are there any other exes of yours I should be aware of? I mean, all of mine are in my files and six feet under,” James laughs, but it turns out quite forced.

“Is that a jealousy I hear in your voice, James?” Q quips back in amusement.

“I’d like to know my rivals. A criminal consultant, woman who successfully blackmailed the royal family, and a government official of extra-terrestrial origin? That’s a list of very unique people.”

 “They all were a bit too much, so while things around you tend to explode if you’re unsupervised, I’m happy right where I am,” Q explains, his tone implying no further comments on this topic are welcome.

James smiles. That’s an answer he can live with.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi5 to those who noticed my nod towards the play with both Ben and Andrew.  
> My eternal gratitude to KaarleSuuri, who had to read this before it was ready, and who deals with my writing blocks.


End file.
